The Complete Works of Isaac Babel Reprint Edition by Isaac Babel, Nathalie Babel, Peter Constantine (12 page)

“Lieutenant, theres some civilian here who wants to see you!” a corporal calls out to me.

What the hell does a civilian want in these nether regions?

A character enters. A shabby, shriveled little old man. He is wearing his Sunday best. His frock coat is bespattered with mud. A half-empty sack dangles from his cowering shoulders. There must be a frozen potato in it—every time he moves, something rattles in the sack.

“Eh bien, what do you want?”

“My name, you see, is Monsieur Marescot,” the civilian whispers, and bows. “That is why I’ve come . . .”

“So?”

“I would like to bury Madame Marescot and the rest of my family, Monsieur Lieutenant.”

“What?”

“My name, you see, is Papa Marescot.” The old man lifts his hat from his gray forehead. “Perhaps you have heard of me, Monsieur Lieutenant!”

Papa Marescot? I have heard this name before. Of course I have heard it. This is the story: Three days ago, at the beginning of our occupation, all nonenemy civilians had been issued the order to evacuate. Some left, others stayed. Those who stayed hid in cellars. But their courage was no match for the bombardment—the stone defense proved hopeless. Many were killed. A whole family had been crushed beneath the debris of a cellar. It was the Marescot family. Their name had stuck in my mind, a true French name. They had been a family of four, the father, mother, and two daughters. Only the father survived.

“You poor man! So you are Marescot? This is so sad. Why did you have to go into that damned cellar, why?”

The corporal interrupted me.

“It looks like they re starting up again, Lieutenant!”

That was to be expected. The Germans had noticed the movement in our trenches. The volley came from the right flank, then it moved farther left. I grabbed Papa Marescot by the collar and pulled him down. My boys ducked their heads and sat quietly under cover, no one as much as sticking his nose out.

Papa Marescot sat pale and shivering in his Sunday best. A five-inch kitten was meowing nearby.

“What can I do for you, Papa? This is no time to beat about the bush! As you can see, were at each others throats here!”

“Mon lieutenant, IVe told you everything. I would like to bury my family.”

“Fine, Fll send the men to collect the bodies.”

“I have the bodies with me, Monsieur Lieutenant!”

“What?”

He pointed to the sack. In it were the meager remains of Papa Marescot s family.

I shuddered with horror.

“Very well, Papa, I will have my men bury them.”

He looked at me as if I had just uttered the greatest idiocy.

“When this hellish din has died down,” I continued, “we shall dig an excellent grave for them. Rest assured, pere Marescot, we will take care of everything.”

“But I have a family vault.”

“Splendid, where is it?”

“But... but.. .”

“ ‘But what?

“But were sitting in it as we speak,
mon lieutenant
.”

“
Thou shalt not kill
” one of the Commandments dictates. This is why Stone, a Quaker, enlisted in the Drivers Corps. He could serve his country without committing the mortal sin of murder. His wealth and education could have secured him a higher post, but, a slave to his conscience, he humbly accepted an insignificant position and the company of people he found coarse.

Who was Stone? He was a bald dome on top of a long stick. The Lord had given him this body with only one objective: to raise Stones thoughts above the sorrows and cares of this world. His every move was nothing more than a victory of spirit over matter. Regardless of how bad things were, when he was sitting at the wheel of his car he bore himself with the wooden firmness of a preacher in his pulpit. No one ever saw him laugh.

One morning Stone was off duty and decided to go for a walk to pay homage to the Lord in the midst of His creation. An enormous Bible under his arm, Stone strode with his long legs over meadows revived by spring. The blue sky, the twittering of the sparrows in the grass, filled him with joy.

Stone sat down, opened his Bible—but at that very moment he saw an untethered horse, its scrawny ribs jutting out, appear by the bend in the path. Stone immediately heard the powerful voice of duty calling him from within. Back home, he was a member of the Society for the Protection of Animals. He went up to the beast, patted its soft lips, and, forgetting his walk, set off for the stables, clutching his Bible. On the way, he stopped to let the horse drink at a well.

The stableboy was a young man named Bekker. His ways had always triggered righteous indignation in Stone: at every posting, Bekker left inconsolable fiancees.

“I could report you to the major!” the Quaker told him. “But I hope that this time a simple warning will be enough! You are going to look after this poor sick horse, which deserves a much better fate than you do!”

And he marched off with a measured, solemn gait, ignoring the guffaws behind him. The young mans square, protruding chin convincingly testified of his invincible stubbornness.

A few days passed. The horse was still wandering about neglected. This time, Stone told Bekker severely, “Son of Satan!” this is more or less how he started his speech. “The Lord Almighty may well allow you to destroy your soul, but your grievous sins should not be allowed to fall upon an innocent mare! Look at her, you wretch! She is stomping about, greatly unsettled. I am certain you are treating her roughly, as is to be expected from a criminal like you! I shall say this one last time, you Devils progeny: head to your own damnation as fast as you see fit, but look after this horse, or you will have me to answer to!”

From that day on, Stone felt that Providence had invested him with a special mission: to care for the fate of the abused quadruped. He felt that people, sinful as they were, were unworthy of respect. But for animals he felt an indescribable compassion. His exhausting duties did not hinder him from keeping his inviolable promise to God.

At night the Quaker would often get out of his car (he slept in it, huddled on the seats) in order to make sure that the horse was at a suitable distance from Bekker s nail-studded boot. In good weather, Stone would even mount the beloved animal. The poor nag, trotting along with an air of importance, would carry Stones long, scrawny body over the green fields, while Stone, his face yellowish and sallow and his lips pressed tight, would picture the immortal, toy-soldierlike figure of the Knight of the Mournful Countenance trotting on his mare Rosinante, over flowers and pastures green.

Stones zeal bore fruit. The stableboy felt Stones relentless eyes upon him, and used every trick in the book not to be caught in the act, but when he was alone with the mare, he vented on her all the fury of his base soul. He felt an inexplicable dread of the taciturn Quaker, and he hated him because of this, and despised himself. The only way he could raise himself in his own esteem was to taunt the horse which the Quaker had taken under his wing. Such is the despicable pride of man. Locking himself in the stables with the horse, the stableboy pricked her hairy, sagging lips with red-hot needles, lashed her across the spine with a wire whip, and threw salt in her eyes. When he finally let the tortured animal totter fearfully to its stall, blinded by stinging salt and swaying like a drunkard, the stableboy threw himself in the hay and laughed his heart out, enjoying his revenge to the fullest.

There was a change at the front. Stones division was relocated to a more dangerous position. His religious beliefs did not permit him to kill, but they did permit him to be killed. The Germans were advancing on the Isere. Stone was transporting the injured. All around him, men of various nationalities were dying at an incredible rate. Old generals, spotlessly clean, their faces swollen, stood on hilltops and monitored the area with field glasses. There was a ceaseless barrage of cannon fire. A stench rose from the earth, the sun rummaged through the mangled corpses.

Stone forgot his horse. But within a week his conscience began gnawing at him, and he found an opportunity to return to the area where he had been stationed before. He found the horse in a dark shed made of a few rickety planks. The mare was so weak she could barely stand. Her eyes were covered with a grimy film. She neighed weakly when she saw her true friend, and lay her faltering muzzle on his hand.

“It isn't my fault,” the stableboy told Stone cheekily. “Were not being given any oats.”

“Fine,” Stone said. Til go get some oats.”

He looked up at the sky that shone through a hole in the roof, and went outside.

I came across him a few hours later and asked him whether the road he was driving down wasn’t too dangerous. He seemed more intense than usual. The last few blood-drenched days had left a deep mark on him, it was as if he were in mourning for himself.

“I haven’t run into any trouble this far,” he mumbled. “But things might well end up badly.” And suddenly he added, Tm heading for the forage stores. I need some oats.”

The following morning a search party of soldiers that was sent out to look for him found him dead at the wheel of his car. A bullet had penetrated his forehead. The car had crashed into a ditch.

Thus died Stone, the Quaker, on account of his love for a horse.

Arina had a little room by the grand stairway near the guestrooms, and Sergei, the janitors assistant, had a room near the service entrance. They had done a shameful deed together. Arina bore Sergei twins on Easter Sunday. Water flows, stars shine, muzhiks feel lust, and Arina again found herself in a delicate condition. She is in her sixth month, the months just roll by when a woman is pregnant, and Sergei ends up being drafted into the army—a fine mess! So Arina goes to him and says, “Listen, Sergunya, theres no point in me sitting around waiting for you. We wont see each other for four years, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I had another brood of three or four by the time you come back. Working in a hotel, your skirt is hitched up more often than not. Whoever takes a room here gets to be your lord and master, Jews or whatever. When you come back from the army my womb will be worn out, I’ll be washed up as a woman, I don’t think I’ll be of any use to you.”

“True enough,” Sergei said, nodding his head.

“The men who want to marry me right now are Trofimich the contractor, he’s a rude roughneck, Isai Abramich, a little old man, and then there’s the warden of Nilolo-Svyatskoi Church, he’s very feeble, but your vigor has rattled my soul to pieces! As the Lord is my witness, I’m all chewed up! In three months I’ll be rid of my burden, I’ll leave the baby at the orphanage, and I’ll go marry them.”

When Sergei heard this he took off his belt and gave Arina a heroic beating, aiming for her belly.

“Hey!” the woman says to him. “Don t beat me on the gut, remember it’s your stuffing in there, not no one else’s!”

She received many savage wallops, he shed many a bitter tear, the womans blood flowed, but thats neither here nor there. The woman went to Jesus Christ and said:

“This and that, Lord Jesus. Me, I’m Arina, the maid from the Hotel Madrid & Louvre on Tverskaya Street. Working in a hotel, your skirt is hitched up more often than not. Whoever takes a room there gets to be your lord and master, Jews or whatever. Here on earth walks a humble servant of Yours, Sergei the janitors assistant. I bore him twins last year on Easter Sunday.”

And she told him everything.

“And what if Sergei didn’t go to the army?” the Savior pondered. “The constable would drag him off.”

“Ah, the constable,” the Savior said, his head drooping. “I’d forgotten all about him. Ah!—and how about if you led a pure life?”

“For four years!” the woman gasped. “Do you mean to say that everyone should stop living a life? You’re still singing the same old tune! How are we supposed to go forth and multiply? Do me a favor and spare me such advice!”

Here the Savior’s cheeks flushed crimson. The woman had stung him to the quick, but he said nothing. You cannot kiss your own ear, even the Savior knew that.

“This is what you need to do, humble servant of the Lord, glorious maidenly sinner Arina!” the Savior proclaimed in all his glory. “I have a little angel prancing about up in heaven, his name is Alfred, and he’s gotten completely out of hand. He keeps moaning, ‘Why, O Lord, did you make me an angel at twenty, a fresh lad like me?’ I’ll give you, Arina, servant of God, Alfred the angel as a husband for four years. He’ll be your prayer, your salvation, and your pretty-boy, too. And there’s no way you’ll get a child from him, not even a duckling, because there’s a lot of fun in him, but no substance.”

“That’s just what I need!” maid Arina cried. “It’s their substance that has driven me to the brink of the grave three times in two years!” “This will be a sweet respite for you, child of God, a light prayer, like a song. Amen.”

And thus it was decided. Alfred, a frail, tender youth, was sent down, and fluttering on his pale blue shoulders were two wings, rippling in a rosy glow like doves frolicking in the heavens. Arina hugged him, sobbing with emotion and female tenderness.

“My little Alfredushka, my comfort and joy, my one-and-only!” The Savior gave her instructions that, before going to bed, she had to take off the angels wings, which were mounted on hinges, just like door hinges, and she had to take them off and wrap them in a clean sheet for the night, because at the slightest frolic the wings could break, as they were made of infants’ sighs and nothing more.

The Savior blessed the union one last time, and called over a choir of abbots for the occasion, their voices thundering in song. There was nothing to eat, not even a hint of food—that wouldn’t have been proper—and Arina and Alfred, embracing, descended to earth on a silken rope ladder. They went to Petrovka, that’s were the woman dragged him to, she bought him lacquered shoes, checkered tricot trousers (by the way, not only was he not wearing pants, he was completely in the altogether), a hunting frock, and a vest of electric-blue velvet.

“As for the rest, sweetie,” she said, “we’ll find that at home.”

That day Arina did not work in the hotel, she took the day off. Sergei came and made a big to-do outside her room, but she wouldn’t open, and called out from behind her door, “Sergei Nifantich, I’m busy washing my feet right now and would be obliged if you would distance yourself without all that to-do!”